Internet access speeds can vary by hundreds of times in different parts of the world. We discuss projects aimed at providing high-speed internet to remote regions.
We will also talk about how internet access is regulated in Asia and the Middle East.
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Places with slow internet still exist
There are places on the planet where internet access speeds are significantly below comfortable levels. For example, in the English village of Trimley St Martin, the content download speed is about 0.68 Mbps. Even worse is the situation in Bamfurlong (Gloucestershire) — the average internet speed there is only 0.14 Mbps. Naturally, in developed countries, such problems are observed only in sparsely populated areas. Similar zones with 'reduced speed' can be found in , and even .
However, there are entire countries where slow internet is the norm. The country with the slowest internet today Yemen. There, the average download speed is 0.38 Mbps — users spend over 30 hours downloading a 5-gigabyte file. Also on the list of countries with slow internet Turkmenistan, Syria, and Paraguay. The situation is also not great on the African continent. According to Quartz, Madagascar is the only country in Africa where content download speed exceeds 10 Mbps.
Some materials from our blog on Habr:
The quality of communication is one of the defining factors affecting the socio-economic condition of a country. The Telegraph reported , that slow internet often forces young people to leave rural areas. Another example is that in Lagos (the largest city in Nigeria), Internet connectivity issues can lead to the loss of developers and potential clients. Interestingly, a 10% increase in the number of internet users in Africa the volume of international trade by about half a percent. Therefore, projects aiming to deliver internet even to the most remote corners of the globe are actively developing today.
Who is laying networks in hard-to-reach regions
In areas with low population density, investments in infrastructure take longer to pay off than in large cities. For example, in Singapore, where according to the SpeedTest index, the fastest internet in the world, has a population density of 7,300 people per square kilometer. The development of IT infrastructure here looks much more promising compared to small villages in Africa. However, despite this, such projects are still progressing.
For instance, Loon — a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. — aims to provide African countries with internet access using balloons. They telecommunication equipment to an altitude of 20 kilometers and connectivity over an area of 5 square kilometers. In mid-summer, Loon to conduct commercial tests in Kenya.
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There are also examples from another part of the globe. In Alaska, mountain ranges, fishing industries, and permafrost hinder cable laying. Therefore, two years ago, the American operator General Communication (GCI) a radio relay () network spanning several thousand kilometers. It covers the southwestern part of the state. Engineers erected over a hundred towers with microwave transceivers, providing internet access for 45,000 people.
How networks are regulated in different countries
Recently, many media outlets often report on the regulation of the internet and the laws being passed in the West and Europe. However, bills of interest are appearing in Asia and the Middle East. For example, a couple of years ago in India, A similar law
has been in China since 2015. It also allows for local restrictions on internet access for national security reasons. Similar regulations exist in Ethiopia and włodi
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mandated local providers and telecommunications companies block traffic through VPN services that are not officially registered.
In Australia, a bill has been passed that messengers from using end-to-end encryption. Several Western countries, particularly the UK and the USA, are already looking at the experience of their Australian counterparts and push forward a similar bill. Whether they will succeed remains to be seen in the near future.
Additional reading on the topic from the corporate blog:
Source: habr.com
